“It’s paperwork, Daria. Smile.”
Pyotr listens with his hands resting on his knees and his eyes not leaving my face.
“He set all those things up during our engagement.” I pick at a loose thread on the blanket. “By the time I realized what was happening, he had years of evidence that made me look like his willing partner. Every account and transaction had my signature that I never put there.”
He kisses my temple and whispers, “Trust me.”
“They were forgeries,” Pyotr surmises.
“Good ones. The kind that would hold up in court. That’s what he showed me the first time I tried to leave.”
A muscle feathers along Pyotr’s jaw.
“Kira was two. I’d been planning for months, hiding cash and memorizing bus schedules. He found out, and he sat me down at the kitchen table, spread out every document, and explained what would happen if I ever tried to leave him.”
Pyotr’s knuckles are white from how hard he’s squeezing his knees. “But you left anyway.”
“Not then. It took me another few months to work up the courage again. I had nothing except the cash I’d hidden in a tampon box because it was the only place he never looked. I grabbed Kira in the middle of the night and ran.”
“And that’s when the threats started.”
“Not right away. He let me think I’d escaped. Let me find an apartment, enroll Kira in daycare, and start building a life. Then, the first photo arrived. It was of Kira on the playground at her daycare.”
My phone buzzes while I wash a cup.
One picture. Kira on the slide, her cheeks pink from the cold.
In the corner, my building. My window.
My hands go slick. I drop the cup into the sink and don’t hear it break.
Pyotr curls his hands into fists. “The demands for information. That’s when those started?”
“Yes. Small things at first, but then it grew. Documents, account numbers, and details about Kozlov operations I had no way of accessing. He expected me to find them anyway.”
“And when you couldn’t deliver?”
“More photos. More threats.”
Pyotr looks like a man trying very hard not to kill someone.
“I gave him scraps. Whatever I could find to buy another week.” I swallow. “I told myself it was survival.”
I wait for the disgust, disappointment, or realization that I’m not just a victim but a collaborator who’s been working against his organization for years.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, Pyotr reaches forward and covers my hands. His thumb drags once over the mark at my wrist, right where the ribbon bit. “This isn’t your fault.”
Four words, and something inside me that’s been wound tight for years comes undone, and I cry. Ugly, heaving sobs that shake my body and make my chest burn. He doesn’t try to stop me or tell me it’s okay or offer empty comfort. He just holds my hands and waits until the storm passes.
When I finally catch my breath, my face is swollen, and my nose is running. I am a mess, but Pyotr is still there, watching me without a trace of judgment.
“What happens now?” I ask, still expecting the worst.
“Now, we destroy him.”
“How? He has everything. His uncle runs half of St. Petersburg, and he still has evidence against me.”
